As a grief relief coping mechanism, I have been pouring over all the postmortem analyses, exit poll data, and explanations as to why this inexplicable event happened.
One frustrating aspect is that everyone seems to be searching for a definitive and discounting others: how dare you say it was the Bernie Sander protest vote that cost the election, no, it was the flawed candidate; it was the FBI/Comey late breaking email announcement; no it was the Clinton campaign not working hard enough in the rust belt states; and permutation after permutation.
In a close election, however, any and all of these different contingencies made a tipping point difference.
However, I think three broader factors set the stage for this perfect storm of contingent events to coalesce into an electoral victory for the Trump campaign.
1. The GOP base will tolerate contradictions and make pragmatic concessions to enhance their cultural authority
We read time and time again that white rural, economically frustrated voters resonated with Trump’s economic populism whereas a consequential swath of the democratic could not support or get excited about the Wall street-indebted, status quo, business as usual Hillary Clinton.
Let’s think this one through in more depth. Trump is a billionaire child of privilege, who has a long documented history of exploiting workers, shipping jobs overseas, and profiting off the structural inequities built into the finance and real estate markets (even bragging about tax dodging). As a candidate, he promised to be the champion of the working man (emphasis on man) and fight against all the policies and practices that made him rich. The vote tallies show that this contradiction did not bother white-rural America one bit; they embraced him as their guy, who would make America great again. Underlying that economic message, is of course a promise to return America to a bygone day when white-hetero privilege and Christian hegemony were unquestioned in American culture. These economic and the socio-cultural considerations are deeply intertwined all the way down to the age-old distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor.
If we want to talk about flawed candidates, had Christian conservatives followed their value voting consciousness, NO candidate on earth would have been more flawed than Trump and his checkered, scandal ridden personal history; a man who made his fortune in the gambling and booze “sin” industries no less. And, if per Michael Moore, this election really turned on the economic disenfranchisement of the white working class, there could have been no more flawed than Trump. However, these and other groups in the GOP voting bloc coalition, were willing to overlook these flaws and make pragmatic concessions because he clearly offered the best path for their preferred version of identity politics to regain its dominant cultural status.
What about the left? Clinton, during this campaign pivoted, in response to Sanders’ primary challenge and came out in opposition of the TPP. She made alliances with other progressive leaders in the DNC, most notably Elizabeth Warren and signaled that progressive interests would have a voice in her administration. Her own track record on women’s and children’s right, protecting the social safety are also consistent with her promises to strengthen Obamacare, defending Roe V. Wade, and continue to honor Obama’s climate treaties, not building the Keystone pipeline and so on.
But the undeniable contradictions between Clinton’s personal history as a card carrying member of the DLC with strong Wall Street ties loomed quite large for a non-trivial segment of the Democratic base to find her candidacy untenable. And here, it would be remiss to ignore that this negative perceptions also reflected 30 long years of character assassination that Clinton has endured, since coming onto the national scene as the first lady of Arkansas. Alternatively, if we go back to 2008, Obama also had lots of ties to Wall Street and other powerful corporate interests (we forget that Obama was the beneficiary of the superdelegate bloc in his primary against Clinton). However, that chink in Obama’s progressive armor did not seem to be near the choke point for the democratic base as it was for Clinton in 2016.
2. Turnout (Big Declines magnify small differences)
When you compare Romney to Trump’s campaign, it is the case that Trump gained a higher percentage of those voting blocs among certain demographics – Latino’s for example—and ran stronger among conventionally strong GOP voting blocs (see fivethirtyeight.com/...). However, the bigger story is that turnout for this incredibly volatile election was lower than in 2008 and 2012. In 2012, Romney handily lost with a national total of 60 million votes (to Obama 65 million) but in 2106, both Clinton and Trump each were in the 59 million range, with Trump claiming a substantial electoral college advantage on razor thin margins.
Voter turnout
heavy.com/....
Roughly speaking, 6 million votes who had cast ballots for Obama in 2012, opted not to vote in 2016.
Given that contingency, left leaning voters who cast protest votes for 3rd party candidates likely made a difference, particularly in the pivotal swing states of MI, PA, and WI. Are those 3rd parties votes the reason that Clinton lost the election. No, if we had 6 million others from democratic base at the polls, their votes would have been inconsequential to the result. However, under the conditions we had, it is undeniable that those votes made a difference and contributing to the tipping point.
Similarly, given the relatively low turnout, the 1-3% of decline in democratic turnout due to more restrictive voting requirements and other GOP-led voter suppression tactics, also likely made a difference.
The Comey/FBI email announcement (oh never mind…) which served to galvanize a base which had lost some hope and seems to have tipped a few late undecideds, likely made a difference.
And on other side, all the Trump scandals, which did gain a fair degree of media coverage down the stretch, had little tangible impact on his support among the GOP base.
Thus, an impropriety in Clinton’s email management and her affiliation with a charitable foundation, two “scandals” which most Americans really did not understand the nuances of, became for some in the democratic base discrediting factors. In contrast, Trump’s fraudulent university, sexual harassment proclivities , and many other scandalous behaviors were inconsequential to those in the GOP base. Think about that for a moment…
3. A more fickle voter base
Let’s look at some recent vote totals:
2004: Bush won 62 million (still riding the “mission accomplished” surge) to Kerry’s 59 million
2008: McCain garnered 59 million votes to Obama’s 69 million
2012: Romney had 60 million votes to Obama’s 65 million
2016: Clinton and Trump both landed in the 59 million range with Clinton claiming an advantage of several hundred thousand votes.
So, where is the big variance across these election cycles? It does not seem to matter who the GOP puts forward – whether an uncharismatic, out of touch plutocrat like Romney to a quintessential insider like McCain to a foul mouth, womanizing, pussy grabbing, gambling magnate—their base comes out and delivers around 60 million votes.
On the Democratic side, candidate and message have to be just right or else we can expect up to ten million potential members of our base to sit out. And we also know that the GOP base also remains far more engaged in mid-term elections than democratic voters: a historical tendency that has hamstrung democratic presidential administrations and ceded control to State legislators (as well as the Congress) to the GOP.
I don’t know all the reasons why the GOP is a more stable, more consistent, and more readily mobilized bloc than the Democratic base. Perhaps, our base is more idealistic; perhaps it is less politically engaged over or some other factors (and combinations thereof). But, I think the reality is that the GOP base will consistently vote their cultural identity interests. Barring a longer term transformation, the Democrats are not going to win over large swaths of rust belt white working class because they also represent non-whites, gays, secular interests, reproductive rights, and the idea that women should also have a place at the economic and political table.
One question for democrats is why is our inclusive identity politics not able to consistently mobilize our base? We can talk all we want about 3rd party revolutions but the current reality is that when GOP claims power, the progressive movement is immediately put on the defensive—fighting against draconian laws and regulatory rollbacks and then trying to win back what has been lost.
Yes, the Democratic party is structurally flawed but when the democrats have power, we can point to some positive movements on important progressive fronts (may not as much as we would like and certainly accompanied by other policies which we deem to be non-progressive).
That scenario is actually not that different from what the GOP gets—for example, all signs is that the “drain the swamp” Trump administration will be filled with status quo corporate lobbyists and the usual suspects from the Bush administration. I guaran-damn-tee you that RW press and the GOP base will rationalize this disparity between reality and Trump’s campaign rhetoric on the assumption that he will deliver on other promises that are more central to the identity politics of the GOP base.
When such disparities showed up in the Obama administration, there was much condemnation and alienation on the left which was exploited in 2010 wave election which effectively allowed the GOP to regain control of many key policy initiatives.
In sum, the democratic base has a more volatile tipping point than the GOP base, which makes the Democratic party perpetually vulnerable.
That is an aggregate difference that matters and the Democratic establishment and its base needs to evaluate in the very near future.
